A common question that frequently arises both with customers and fellow consultants is what do I recommend for logging? As experienced software developers, we know that there are going to be errors in our solution -- as well as other important events that we want to monitor -- and therefore we know we need a robust way of logging these.

However, with numerous options available -- e.g. log4net, Enterprise Library, Common.Logging, SharePoint ULS, etc. -- it's no wonder this is frequently a "hot" topic.

Several years ago, I created a simple, but highly effective approach to logging based on the (then) new System.Diagnostics features in the .NET Framework version 2.0.

Before introducing my logging feature, it is first important to understand the goals (and non-goals) of the solution.

Goals and Non-Goals

The primary goals of the logging feature are:

  • Provide solution components a way of logging messages of various levels (e.g. errors, warnings, information) with minimal custom code.
  • Ensure log messages can be enabled in all environments (e.g. DEV, TEST, and PROD); in other words, in both Debug and Release builds (unlike the Debug.WriteLine method, which relies on the DEBUG conditional compilation constant).
  • Through configuration, enable log messages to be routed to various outputs such as a text file, the Windows Event Log, or ASP.NET tracing.
  • Ensure that different levels of log messages can be filtered and potentially routed to different outputs; for example, log all messages to the console, but only log errors and warnings to a text file.

Non-goals of the logging feature include:

  • Providing the fastest possible logging implementation; rather the performance impact of logging should be insignificant when compared with the "real" work performed by the solution components.
  • Changing logging configuration without reinitializing the solution; for example, to change the logging for an ASP.NET application, it is acceptable to restart the corresponding application pool.
  • Filtering log messages based on subsystems (or feature areas) of the solution; for example, when logging is enabled for debug messages, then log messages from all components are output.
Introducing the Logger Class

With the custom Logger class, logging a debug message is simply a matter of calling a static method, specifying nothing more than a string containing the message :

    Logger.LogDebug("Successfully loaded search results into DataSet.");

This example shows how the Logger class achieves the primary design goal. Note that there is no need to explicitly create objects within each class -- or create additional classes within an assembly -- for logging purposes.

Also note that the Logger class provides additional overloads to easily format log messages:

    Logger.LogDebug(
        CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
        "Successfully loaded embedded resource ({0})"
            + " ({1:n0} bytes) from assembly ({2}).",
        resourceName,
        resourceContent.Length,
        resourceAssembly.FullName);

Note that the Logger.LogDebug method is simply a convenient alternative to the Logger.Log method:

    /// <summary>
    /// Logs an event to the trace listeners using the specified
    /// event type and message.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="eventType">One of the System.Diagnostics.TraceEventType
    /// values that specifies the type of event being logged.</param>
    /// <param name="message">The message to log.</param>
    public static void Log(
        TraceEventType eventType,
        string message)

Other methods such as LogInfo and LogError provide similar overloads for convenience.

The simplicity of the Logger class is made possible by the improved tracing functionality introduced in the .NET Framework version 2.0. Specifically, the Logger class is simply a "wafer-thin" wrapper around the System.Diagnostics.TraceSource class.

The Logger class declares a singleton TraceSource that is used to log all messages:

    private static TraceSource defaultTraceSource =
        new TraceSource("defaultTraceSource");

Various listeners can then be configured to output log messages. Each type of listener derives from TraceListener.

Note that the .NET Framework includes listeners for logging to a file, the Windows Event Log, as well as ASP.NET tracing. Consequently, with just a little bit of custom code (i.e. the Logger class) combined with all the "goodness" baked into the core .NET Framework, we have a logging feature that meets all of the established goals.

In my next post, I introduce how to configure logging (starting out with a console application).

Here is the complete source for the Logger class:

#define TRACE

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Text;

namespace Fabrikam.Demo.CoreServices.Logging
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Exposes static methods for logging various events (e.g. debug,
    /// informational, warning, etc.). This class cannot be inherited.
    /// </summary>
    /// <remarks>
    /// All methods of the <b>Logger</b> class are static
    /// and can therefore be called without creating an instance of the class.
    /// </remarks>
    public sealed class Logger
    {
        private static TraceSource defaultTraceSource =
            new TraceSource("defaultTraceSource");

        private Logger() { } // all members are static

        /// <summary>
        /// Flushes all the trace listeners in the trace listener collection.
        /// </summary>
        public static void Flush()
        {
            defaultTraceSource.Flush();
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Logs an event to the trace listeners using the specified
        /// event type and message.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="eventType">One of the System.Diagnostics.TraceEventType
        /// values that specifies the type of event being logged.</param>
        /// <param name="message">The message to log.</param>
        public static void Log(
            TraceEventType eventType,
            string message)
        {
#if DEBUG
            // Some debug listeners (e.g. DbgView.exe) don't buffer output, so
            // Debug.Write() is effectively the same as Debug.WriteLine().
            // For optimal appearance in these listeners, format the output
            // for a single call to Debug.WriteLine().
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

            sb.Append(eventType.ToString());
            sb.Append(": ");
            sb.Append(message);

            string formattedMessage = sb.ToString();
            Debug.WriteLine(formattedMessage);
#endif

            defaultTraceSource.TraceEvent(eventType, 0, message);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Logs a debug event to the trace listeners using the specified
        /// format string and arguments.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="provider">An System.IFormatProvider that supplies
        /// culture-specific formatting information.</param>
        /// <param name="format">A composite format string.</param>
        /// <param name="args">An System.Object array containing zero or more
        /// objects to format.</param>
        public static void LogDebug(
            IFormatProvider provider,
            string format,
            params object[] args)
        {
            string message = string.Format(
                provider, format, args);

            LogDebug(message);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Logs a debug event to the trace listeners.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="message">The message to log.</param>
        public static void LogDebug(
            string message)
        {
            Log(TraceEventType.Verbose, message);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Logs a critical event to the trace listeners using the specified
        /// format string and arguments.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="provider">An System.IFormatProvider that supplies
        /// culture-specific formatting information.</param>
        /// <param name="format">A composite format string.</param>
        /// <param name="args">An System.Object array containing zero or more
        /// objects to format.</param>
        public static void LogCritical(
            IFormatProvider provider,
            string format,
            params object[] args)
        {
            string message = string.Format(
                provider, format, args);

            LogCritical(message);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Logs a critical event to the trace listeners.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="message">The message to log.</param>
        public static void LogCritical(
            string message)
        {
            Log(TraceEventType.Critical, message);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Logs an error event to the trace listeners using the specified
        /// format string and arguments.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="provider">An System.IFormatProvider that supplies
        /// culture-specific formatting information.</param>
        /// <param name="format">A composite format string.</param>
        /// <param name="args">An System.Object array containing zero or more
        /// objects to format.</param>
        public static void LogError(
            IFormatProvider provider,
            string format,
            params object[] args)
        {
            string message = string.Format(
                provider, format, args);

            LogError(message);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Logs an error event to the trace listeners.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="message">The message to log.</param>
        public static void LogError(
            string message)
        {
            Log(TraceEventType.Error, message);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Logs an informational event to the trace listeners using the specified
        /// format string and arguments.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="provider">An System.IFormatProvider that supplies
        /// culture-specific formatting information.</param>
        /// <param name="format">A composite format string.</param>
        /// <param name="args">An System.Object array containing zero or more
        /// objects to format.</param>
        public static void LogInfo(
            IFormatProvider provider,
            string format,
            params object[] args)
        {
            string message = string.Format(
                provider, format, args);

            LogInfo(message);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Logs an informational event to the trace listeners.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="message">The message to log.</param>
        public static void LogInfo(
            string message)
        {
            Log(TraceEventType.Information, message);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Logs a warning event to the trace listeners using the specified
        /// format string and arguments.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="provider">An System.IFormatProvider that supplies
        /// culture-specific formatting information.</param>
        /// <param name="format">A composite format string.</param>
        /// <param name="args">An System.Object array containing zero or more
        /// objects to format.</param>
        public static void LogWarning(
            IFormatProvider provider,
            string format,
            params object[] args)
        {
            string message = string.Format(
                provider, format, args);

            LogWarning(message);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Logs a warning event to the trace listeners.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="message">The message to log.</param>
        public static void LogWarning(
            string message)
        {
            Log(TraceEventType.Warning, message);
        }
    }
}
Update 2010-03-20
A newer version of the Logger class is available in the following post:
Logging Exceptions in .NET Applications
http://blogs.msdn.com/jjameson/archive/2010/03/20/logging-exceptions-in-net-applications.aspx

Note that the Logger.cs file actually includes #define TRACE at the top of the file. This is because I originally wrote this class with an old version of Visual Studio (which did not define this compilation constant by default when creating new projects). Visual Studio 2008 projects include this in the project options by default (for both Debug and Release configurations), so this is superfluous.

As you can see, there's really not much to this class (which hopefully means there isn't much that can go wrong with it). Most, if not all, of it should be very straightforward. I'll explain the importance of the Logger.Flush method in my next post.